Money Management Simplified (Part 1)

Last March 23, 2010 I spoke at the Manila Bulletin Job Fair at the Glorieta Activity Center in Makati and in that talk I mentioned how job seekers can stretch their cash while searching for a job. I had a great time that day and I hope that my simple advice will go a long way for those still searching for that career.

In this article, I want to expound on this topic to include not just job seekers but literally everyone who is having a hard time in managing their money. I call this article Money Management Simplified because there are really just a few things you need to know if you really want to manage your money well. Like my experience in the job fair, it is my hope that this article will finally help you in getting to where you want to go faster with just a few key action points to do right now.

First, start with a blank sheet of paper and in the middle, write down how much money you have at this very moment. If you are married, I suggest you do this exercise with your spouse and combine both of your money right now. Your piece of paper should look like this:

Good, now, I want you to write on top of that number, how much money (and your spouse if applicable) you take home every month. (Take home money is the actual money that comes in every month, whether from a job, a business, an investment, etc.). Your piece of paper should now look something like this:

Okay, now, I want you to write below, your total expenses per month, again, if you are married (and with kids), if you have loan payments, add everything up then write down how much expenses you have every month. Your piece of paper should now look something like this:

Great job! Now, the reason why I asked you to write down these three things is because this will be the simplified framework of how you will manage your money from now on. I want you to imagine that you are a cup of water, your “money right now” is the water level in the cup, your “take home money” is the money “pouring” in to you. Look at the drawing below:

Now, you are a very special cup of water because you have “holes” in your bottom, these holes represent your expenses. So here’s the complete picture below:

So, let’s analyze a bit,

Scenario 1: if my “take home per month” is smaller than my “expenses per month” then my money right now will eventually become zero or in other words, you become “bankrupt”. Yikes!, we don’t want that right. To show you what I mean, let’s go back now to what I asked you to write on that piece of paper.

Ex.

P15,000

P25,000

P30,000

Now here’s the simple money management formula that you will have to do to know if you are managing your money well

Take home/month + Money right now – Expenses / month = a Negative number; or a Positive Number over time.

In the example above, the formula will produce a Negative number and this is what happens to your money when this happens:

1st month:

P15,000

+ P25,000

– P30,000

= P10,000

(This is how much money you have left in your bank after the first month)

2nd month:

P15,000

+P10,000

–P30,000

= -P5,000

(You now don’t have money and you will need to get a loan just to cover your basic expenses. Not good.)

Scenario 2: But what if my “take home per month” is equal to my expenses per month then my money right now will remain at the same level. That’s good, but if you want to have more money, that’s not good enough.

Ex.

P30,000

P25,000

P30,000

In this example, the formula will produce a Positive number that remains the same month in month out and this is what happens to your money when this happens:

1st month:

P30,000

+ P25,000

– P30,000

= P25,000 still

(This is how much money you have left in your bank after the first month)

2nd month:

P30,000

+P25,000

–P30,000

= P25,000 still

(Your money remains intact. This is a better result, but not good if you want to have more money.)

Scenario 3: So what if my “take home per month is more than my expenses per month? Then my money right now will start to increase. This scenario is where you want to be. This is where you start to become financially smarter.

Ex.

P40,000

P25,000

P30,000

In this example, the formula will produce a Positive number and this is what happens to your money when this happens:

1st month:

P40,000

+ P25,000

– P30,000

= P35,000

(You now gained P10,000 more after the first month)

2nd month:

P40,000

+P35,000

–P30,000

= P45,000

(You gained another P10,000 This is where you want to be, this should now be your goal.)

In Money Management Simplified Part 2, I will explain how to get from scenario 1 to scenario 3. By the way, this method of money management is what me and my wife practice day in day out. This is called the “Simple Cashflow Method” which I have simplified even more to get as many of you started in managing your money properly.

Thank you for the money management information, I am new to the home business field and I have a hard enough time trying to balance my own check book never mind a business account. I do plan on putting this practice to daily use.

Dear Mark: thank you very much for keeping in-touch with me. I really follow religiously your column at the Manila Bulletin every sunday and without it, sundays seem not complete. One tip or advise that I would like to ask from you is the proper way to cost my professional service as a Dentist coz I am basing my professional fees based on the standard fees set by the local chapter of our dental society in Manila for uniformity purposes. What I would like to know is the proper way of making a Professional Fee based on the right accounting principle. May you help me regarding my query. Thanks and regards to your family. God bless you always. Dr. Toni

Hi Anthony, thanks for writing in. Thats a very common and great question I get from my students who attend my proactive sales and marketing course at Businessmaker. There are several ways to do it. 1) what you are doing is what i call competition based pricing, while that is ok, i suggest that you also look at a simple cost calculation to know if what you are charging is enough. Do the exercise on this article (money management simplified part 1) add up all your expenses for your practice. Lets say your total expenses per month is P50,000, next i want you to breakdown your Take home per month, so lets say your take home per month is P50,000 this figure = ave sales price x volume if your price is P500 /patient and your volume is 100 patients per month that = p50,000. So if you cannot add more volume, then increase your price to maybe P700 per patient. If the number of patients remain at 100 per month then your new take home will now be p70000 and your new balance will now have an additional P20,000 profit. If thats a better figure then you’ve got your proper pricing.

Hope this helps. Of course you are always welcome to attend my sales and marketing seminar this Sat where i expound on this but also teach you how to increase your total sales with Zero costs.

for quite sometime, i just kept your blog recorded in my cellphone hoping to visit it one day until i finally opened it now. the initial presentation was indeed simple but it was very practical and truly enlightening. I am a retired military serviceman hoping to receive my pension arrears in substantial amount soon and I wish to invest part of it in a business or maybe in stocks. problem is i don’t have much knowledge about how this stocks operate aside from what i hear from people, also i haven’t thought much of having a business as again, i don’t know where to start except an invitation from a networking company selling variety of products? maybe i should or must learn more from your articles. many thanks sir. you help a lot of people particularly those who want to be succesful financially. God bless you.

Hi Mr. Mark So,
I am a retired seaman and my wife has stopped working since we got married 23 years ago.. I am now thinking of how I can manage my hard earned money before it gets depleted before I reach the age of 60. It’s nice to know that there are blogs like these to help people be financially independent. I think my wife & I have to really sit down, talk & apply these methods in our daily lives.
Thanks & Have a good day!! More power !!!

Very Welcome Patty. Please do completely read parts 2 and 3 as it contains a LOT of really simple yet powerful methods to get your house in order financially. This is just the first set of assignments. Many, many more to come

True. Our Expenses should be lesser than our income. It is always good to live below our means. To become wealthy, we must maintain our lifestyle even if we get an increase in income. Raising our lifestyle with the increase in income would only cause us to break even. Great Article Mark! More Power!

A business starts out with erratic sales, but a mature business has very predictable streams of income. If your business has been around and still has unpredictable sales after 3 to 4 years, then there is something wrong with how you are doing it. There are ways to beat “seasonality” you just have to learn them. Fortunately, I will be discussing this in the near future. Keep reading and learning Josephine.

Thank you Sir Mark for sharing this simple yet very useful framework. I wish I have more “water” pouring in to me or maybe fewer and smaller holes in my bottom 🙂 I’m excited to learn your techniques on how to shift from scenario 1 into scenario 3. More power to you sir!

I will try my best to practice this scheme. Once I was able to practice when I was pregnant. I really disciplined myself to save for my delivery. But after birth, that’s when our debts piled up due to misuse of credit cards. For three years, we remained very frugal just to pay off 5 of the credit cards we had. Now we only have one card to be used only in case of emergency. I just hope we will be able to really keep our hands off from using our card.
One thing I want to learn is what business to delve into. Is it good to have both jobs and business on the side. Or if I want to have business, then quit my 9-5 job and focus on the business?

One step at a time Mamy, having credit cards is not a problem, getting rid of them is actually the reverse of what the wealthy do. The secret is not to minimize the use, the secret is to learn how to manage it. I personally struggled for a long time with my credit card misuse, and I paid for it dearly, but that did not stop me from getting more credit cards, I just had to learn to manage it properly. Today, my credit line is exceptional and clean. (zero unpaid debts) I use my cards every chance I get, pay it fully and get a LOT of freebies, discounts and perks that come with it. Easier said than done I know as I’ve been there, but if you continue with our article series, you will understand this more (when I release that article) and other things, basic things that you (and your hubby) need to do to become better at managing money. Of course, feel free to browse our business articles if you want to know more about business. A lot more to come. Talk soon

This looks pretty simple and common sense, but as with most things, it is easier said than done.I have learned to save from a young age, but my problem right now is how to keep the expenses the same every month too.

hi mark,
i’m so happy to have you as our financial mentor,i’ve been looking forward for someone who will give us a time to reply to our queries and comments.sir mark, you’ve made us feel existed as a person looking for a leader to guide us well,even stubborn as we are, we will keep following your advice.thannks for making as rich in every step of the way.God will bless you and your family.

We have been taught those things in school and at home but somehow they got lost along the way through all those years that we have been struggling to make ends meet. It’s great to have somebody remind us. Thanks a lot Mark!

Mark, though this method is really simple most people don’t know it or some doesn’t to face it, that’s why they get so deep in debt, but putting it in writing seems to have it’s own power and i appreciate it that you try to make it simple so that everybody can learn it. thanks again for doing what you do, good luck and more power!!!

yes, we should make an analysis of our current situation before we can bring our self to the “ideal ” financial state…it is not easy but we must face the facts and acknowledge the corrections that we have to implement in order to be successsful

I heard once that one of the marks of wisdom is the capacity to simplify things without losing their essence. The analogy you made above is truly neat! Very simple but intellectually elegant. Thank you for showing me a simplified way of understanding money management. God bless you, Mark and Jhoanna!

thank you for the simplified advice, that is currently my problem since my expenses usually is much bigger than my take home. the business is still sprouting and im quite new to the businessworld i hope you could give me more advises, well for a newbie such as me

Sir Mark,
In the school that I work now, many of my colleagues had bad debt. So I will share your idea about money management to them so that they can get out of that bad debt. I will also apply your idea in building my wealth.

Since retiring as a Director from a government agency, our family income comes from consultancy services and small business ventures without a definite monthly amount – sometimes, the reward is big; at times, like the recent agri engagement, even our capital got badly hit.

Thank you Mark for being generous with your wisdom. I am eager to learn more. Your comment on increasing professional fees re: the dentist above . can not apply to physicians like me. I do charge according to the standard fees for drs in my specialty but many times also charge less and even not at all for indigent patients who can not afford my fees. It does not really bother me as somehow the Lord rewards me financially in other ways.

Generosity is a blessing as well my friend so keep it up. Please be sure to read “How to Make Money Run After You Part 2” where I start talking about Money Leeches. If you haven’t done so as well, please do sign up for the “Wealth Plan” to get the articles in the right sequence.

Thanks again Mark! If only people would do this very simple money management of yours…life in the Philippines would have been different. I just hope your lessons will reach many Filipinos and also to people around the world. More power to you and Jhoanna! God bless…

Wow! This article magnifies the real scenario of Filipino’s finances and how they handle money…
I’m very excited and looking forward to what I could do to earn more and save more…
thanks Sir Mark and God bless!

The cup framework is indeed simplified. I know my case is scenario 1. Can’t help it (as of now, but hope you can help me go to scenario 3). Because the way I see it, minimum wage is just too low. And setting up business eats up all savings even before starting operations. I expect to learn more from you. Will continue to read on… Thanks for the lessons, by the way.

VERY GOOD EXAMPLE!!!
VERY PRACTICAL!!!
VERY DOABLE!!!
I REALLY LEARNED A LOT SIR!!!
I REALLY ENJOYED EVERY SINGLE PAGE OF YOU ARTICLE SIR!!!
KEEP IT UP!!!
tnx sir!!!
take care!!!
MORE POWER!!!
GOD BLESS!!!

Hi Mark! Can’t believe I am actually doing the steps..this is fun. I like that you are making me realize about something so serious – money thing – in a ligt and fun way. I like the glass illustration a lot.. it ‘s mind opening really. I am really starting to reflect now…seriously. Super thanks for all these. This is just great!!! God bless you.

Simply desire to say your article is as astounding. The clarity for your submit is just excellent and i could assume you are knowledgeable in this subject. Well together with your permission let me to seize your RSS feed to keep up to date with forthcoming post. Thanks 1,000,000 and please keep up the gratifying work.

This is so true. Some people will definitely exclaim “oo nga no?!” when they see this. Most of people who have or earn big salaries sometimes forget to just sit down and do the math. In most cases, they do but mostly when their struggling in debt (like what I’ve experienced). So, either you find a way to lower your expenses or you increase your take home money. But when that “light bulb” clicks on, everything will fall into place and will be easier (if not, at least manageable or attainable).

yeah, it’s look like the leaky bucket of community development. if a community income is leaking outside, they will not progress because their gain is flowing out to other community/ies. but if the gain is revolving within the community, it will stop the leakage going out and income is going in within the community.

we are doing community development, but we forget to apply it in ourselves. so, your article is a reminder to me to face the reality, to start within myself, to my family, and having to impart also to those communities that we work on.

Yes, very true. Apply first to yourself what you do for your communities. In an Airplane, before take off, the flight attendants will instruct you, if you have a child, put on your mask first, and then the child. Same thing applies with wealth building. Good insights, keep it up.

Good day sir Mark,
After going thru your simple cash flow formula with my own figures. Am glad to note that at least I’m gaining so far per month. Though I wish it was more on a consistent basis since I’m in the sales field. Thanks for sharing.

wow! a simple detailed formula on money matters on a monthly basis but hard do to literally….a good exercise especially for working proffessionals who cannot handle their money so well. thanks for sharing this as an eye opener too for financial wellness.

im so excited it feels like im in a treasure hunt that slowly revealing secrets to unlock the treasure chest.thanks a lot i’ll be applying immediately these methods to begin my life changing experience with your articles.

Excellent. Very basic but yet promising and pose to be effective. this is the right formula for all walks of life. thanks for this. it’s good way to manage my income vs expenses intelligently. I love reading your articles. hope to share ideas in the future… 🙂

hi mark – i agree on the wealth flow project … we’ve been doing the + and – thing but one thing which opened my mind today is for us to start consisently tracking our money flow…probably we can make a detailed daily expenses so at the end of the month we can know whether what we spend is a need or a want. if it’s a want probably we will cut this expense then check/analyze the need expenses whether if we can still cut or lessen this. thanks!

Again, you’ve provided us with a very simple and practical way to understand the relationship between income, current cash on hand and expenses.
The examples you gave are very easy to understand and it readily shows us to which direction we must to go to start building our wealth.

Good evening Sir Mark,
Being in the staus of “below middle class ” at the early stage of my life, I knew the importance of the value of money. During the early part of my marraige, I tried my best to make do of what we earned because I hated the effects of having loans plus its interests. We were able to survive by simple means sans the anxieties of having debts. I simply save our bonuses to pay off our children’s educational expenses. There were months with savings to fund the other months’ deficits – all done via monthly projections throughout the year.
Cheers

I have a lot of expenses and they are just unpredictable . Sometimes I need to get an installation to buy my kids’ needs like school supplies, books, eyeglasses, medicine. And sometimes my electric bill is low and then higher until I cannot pay it anymore. My income is fluctuating so are my expenses. How can you help me with that?

Seems to me that you first have to take control of your fluctuating expenses. Have you started recording them yet? If not, that is where you start. If you have already recorded them the next thing to do is to analyze why they fluctuate. For example, your electricity fluctuates because there might be days when certain appliances are left open, etc. Once you know the cause of the fluctuation, then comes the hard part, be disciplined enough to stop the fluctuation. Afterwards, please read the next articles in the series for help with increasing steady income.

I am slowly getting to my solution, thank you for this simple step to know where we are in our financial life. I actually did it with my wife and no surprise IT’S NEGATIVE. But we are both happy to know that we are getting into a sound solution and smart steps to resolve this.

I am a 24 year old supporting both my senior citizen parents. I work in a government hospital in a probationary position with no benefits. I am aware that my expenses is larger than my income and the only way I know to change it is if I’ll work abroad. This will be harder for me than I thought, but I am still hoping something good will come to me.

Dear sir,
Thank you for this money management scheme, it is a big help. I do realized a lot of things especially my expenses. I have a lot of expenses.. Thank you sir and looking forward to hear from you.

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10000

Praise for Mark and Jhoanna’s Articles

"That was awesome Mark. it is truly inspires me while reading your articles. More power to you. Hope I could pass by to attend in one of your Seminars."

-Captain Ermer Magbanua

"Hi Mark,

Nice article. I like your concept. Making a business in a bite-size and more manegeable scale. How I wish I can arrange one day to go for your seminar. By the way I'm an OFW and currently working here in UAE. Being separated from my pecious family is quite an ordeal as I work here in abroad. I really need to do something to have a reasonable and concrete source of cashflow in the Philippines to end my abroad job.

As I started receiving email from your group, a spark of idea of doing a business in food catering or a small restaurant have been ringing in my mind since then. As I was saying, I'm thingking of ending my career as an OFW. I want do this food business and be with my family. As an OFW, my wife & I managed to save some significant amount of money and we're really want to do the venture the moment my contract here in UAE expires (that's almost 2 years from now).

I know that I need to invest first in acquiring relevant informations how to make this "small business" sustainable and make it progressive as the operations goes on. I do hope that your group can enlighten me further about this endeavor. I'll be having my next annual vacation soon. I really want to have a seat in your 7-Point Formula Course/Seminar."

-Roy Adrian Cornell

"expanding your means and not living below your current means is a great financial advice....thank you for sharing these specific step by step approach.These articles should be part of a school's curriculum.Looking forward to learning a lot from you and your company...and expanding our means too.... :)"

-Patricia Adrueda

"Mark,Great ideas. I really appreciate what you are doing. These are practical lessons that all of us should learn. I am grateful."

-Fred Murillo

"This is a good article. I used to have 2 columns only when doing budgeting: money in, and money out (ie, expenses). I had always thought expense is just money going out. Now I know, there is such a thing as good expense. This article also interesting in that budgeting is likened to dieting- I don't have to deprive myself of things I want, but I just have to find a more sensible expense to substitue for the bad expense. I am applying this now in my monthly budgeting. More power!"

-Jacqueline Lipardo

"You are absolutely right Mark! I started with nothing a year ago..I capitalize my skill and experience.

Thanks for sharing your business expertise online and for being an inspiration to those who wanted to start their own business.

More Praise Still for Mark and Jhoanna’s Articles

"Mark,Great ideas. I really appreciate what you are doing. These are practical lessons that all of us should learn. I am grateful."

-Fred Murillo

"its very basic... right?! :) many of filipino's new it already but the problem is mind setting... You know what sir... I will share this knowledge to my bro. and sisters and relatives... Iam praying that God will give you more strength and more wisdom and good health as well... Thank you sir! thank you!"

-Leonidas "LEO" Reyes

"People should be forced to perform these exercises before they start their own business. Many failures would be avoided!"